USA's 'Burn Notice' plays with fire over summer
The thing about a light, frothy summer replacement series is it's hard for a show to be content with being "just" a frothy summer replacement. If it's successful at that, it tends to want to achieve more.
The superspy summer drama "Burn Notice" returns for its second season at 9 p.m. today on USA, and having been successful - both in ratings and in critical acclaim - last year, this year it's moving toward something else, something, yes, a bit more ambitious. In fact, it plans to play hardball with the big boys in the competitive midwinter come January, so the second-season premiere finds it maneuvering to get more serious. For now, however, it remains an engaging summer lark.
Enjoy it while you can, Aware One, because like a flitting summer butterfly it may not last.
Tonight's season premiere falls back on what works: the show's fine cast and playful action. Jeffrey Donovan stars as Michael Westen, a former spy who got issued a "burn notice" - that is, a pink slip. Spies being dangerous individuals to keep around when they don't have set duties (they're sort of like Japanese samurai in that regard) they tend to get exterminated when they get fired. Michael, however, proved his skill and guile last season, and struck an uneasy truce with the forces that would have him dead - while putting his superspy talents to work helping others in his hometown of Miami on a weekly basis, in a manner befitting a TV series.
Donovan has a self-deprecating charm, but also plenty of panache; he can crack a joke, but get down to business when the job calls for it. He's aided by Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona, his ex-lover (they still carry a smoldering torch for each other), a capable butt kicker herself as a former Irish Republican Army irregular, and Bruce Campbell as Sam, a retired military-intelligence chum, who offers wry comic relief and a little bit of spy acumen as well. Then there's Sharon Gless as Michael's ditzy, demanding mother, Madeline.
This is cast enough for any unassuming summer replacement series. Anwar especially is at last in her element; having come to fame in little-girl roles (she was the heroine in Abel Ferrara's remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," as well as being the one who makes Al Pacino go "hoo-wah" in "Scent of a Woman"), here she has a lithe cougar prowess. Tonight's episode largely just fills the time with scenes in which Michael engages in banter, bouncing from Fiona to Sam to Madeline and back again. It's the show at its easygoing, effortless best.
Yet writer-creator Matt Nix - and cable USA - are well aware that the shelf life for a light, frothy summer replacement series is just about that of whipping cream left out on a hot afternoon, so the new season also finds them working on a transition to more intrigue. Having made an entrance at the end of last season as a sultry, smokey voice on the other end of Michael's cell phone, Tricia Helfer of "Battlestar Galactica" will pop up as Carla, the woman who supposedly put out the original "burn notice" on him, and who is now going to put him to work performing what appears to be a series of Herculean spy tasks in order to get back in her good graces. Tonight's episode is really just a start on that. Michael has to help a computer nebbish hack into some sort of intense security program - and in the process save his wife and daughter, who are being held hostage as incentive.
Yet, for a show that prides itself on being easygoing, this transition isn't easy. Carla not only needs to be savvy and ruthless, a formidable opponent, the intrigue needs to create a conspiracy mythology of a sort that fueled "The X-Files" for several seasons. "Burn Notice" is going to run eight episodes now, then return in January, apparently with enough edge to compete against other midseason dramas. Like Michael Westen, it will have its work cut out for it.
See, a show shouldn't work too hard over the summer - the way "The Office" does with a series of "webisodes" debuting today on nbc.com. The "Kevin's Loan" snippets imagine Brian Baumgartner's Kevin trying to arrange a small-business bank loan to pay off gambling debts. Yet there's very little humor here - the slight gags seem forced. Moved to center stage, Baumgartner's Kevin, with his measured intonation and shifty eyes, comes off as a Muppet character - sort of a bald Snuffleupagus. This isn't new media; it's just a new way to market a tired series with schlock over the summer.
By contrast, CBS offers up the pandering "Greatest American Dog" at 7 p.m. today on WBBM Channel 2. The title pretty much says it all in this reality competition, which is not an open tournament, but a set series featuring a dozen pre-picked finalists. What's next, "America's Cutest Kids?" Hey, don't go giving the major broadcast networks any ideas - not during the summer TV doldrums, anyway.